Recent Crypto 'Bloodbath' Is Not Necessarily Bad, Regulators Say

The downturn can help weed out shady characters and doomed ventures, a number of officials and entrepreneurs said at a forum in Zurich last week.

AccessTimeIconJun 27, 2022 at 4:19 p.m. UTC
Updated May 11, 2023 at 3:35 p.m. UTC
10 Years of Decentralizing the Future
May 29-31, 2024 - Austin, TexasThe biggest and most established global hub for everything crypto, blockchain and Web3.Register Now

Crypto executives and regulators don’t often see eye to eye, but they seem to agree that the recent crypto market turmoil could prove to be positive for the industry by helping filter out unsustainable projects and bad actors.

At least that was the prevailing consensus at the inaugural Point Zero Forum, an invite-only meeting of investors and policymakers that took place in Zurich last week.

Crypto’s total market capitalization is about $1 trillion, down from an October high of $2.7 trillion, according to CoinGecko data.

“There’s a bloodbath going on,” Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said at a panel on the future of financial services on Wednesday, referring to the billions of dollars – and companies – leaving the market.

The collapse of the once $18 billion algorithmic stablecoin terraUSD (UST) in May sent shock waves through the industry. Since then, hedge fund Three Arrows Capital revealed it had suffered heavy losses while multibillion-dollar crypto lender Celsius Network froze withdrawals.

Prominent crypto firms around the world, including U.S.-based Coinbase and Gemini as well as Europe’s Bitpanda, have slashed hiring.

Menon says the exodus could help weed out bad actors.

“This is not necessarily bad,” Menon said. “For a regulator, a central bank, it’s a great opportunity to separate the wheat from the chaff.”

Also on the panel, Jon Cunliffe, a deputy governor at the Bank of England, likened the market crash to the dot-com bubble, where excessive speculation led to U.S. tech stock valuations ballooning in the 1990s before the bubble burst in 2000.

“A lot of companies went, but the technology didn't go away, and it came back 10 years later,” Cunliffe said, pointing to survivors such as Amazon. “So whatever happens over the next few months to crypto assets that people trade, I expect crypto technology and finance to continue.”

Fast-tracking regulations

The recent market meltdown underlines the growing urgency for establishing regulations for the industry.

On June 7, U.S. Sens. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) introduced a wide-ranging bill that would govern crypto-asset service providers and includes detailed disclosure requirements for stablecoin issuers in light of Terra’s downfall.

The European Union’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) bill, which also lays out requirements for stablecoin issuers, is moving ahead in the legislative process and the U.K. announced in April that it was planning to introduce a regulatory package for crypto and to regulate stablecoins under existing payments legislation.

Crypto firms and regulators need to put the effort into make the industry more sustainable, Agustín Carstens, general manager of the Bank for International Settlements, a central bank-owned financial institution, said during the conference in Zurich.

“The degree of leverage in many of these transactions is completely abnormal,” Carstens said during a panel on the future of financial services. “You cannot defy gravity. You are running an extremely risky operation. If something goes a little bit wrong, the possibility of crashing is very high.”

‘I welcome this downturn’

Several crypto heavyweights in attendance said the market crash was a welcome correction.

“I welcome this downturn,” Kris Marszalek, CEO of digital assets exchange Crypto.com, said during a panel on the future of crypto. “This is the time to demonstrate how the real [companies in crypto] can continue building [and] be the steady hand, the calming voice, during volatile times and just deliver real value.”

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of fintech Ripple Labs, said that the downturn could weed out tokens that have no utility: “I think the vast majority of tokens will go away over a period of time, because I can't figure out the utility … Dogecoin is a clear example of [something that was] never designed with utility, the founders have left the project [and] it moves based upon the tweets of Elon Musk.”

During his panel, Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume, suggested that crypto entrepreneurs need to have a clear business model.

“If you're only getting users because you're using incentives to attract users, that's not a real business model. Eventually, you're going to run out of money and you will crash," Zhao said during a panel on Wednesday on weathering the storm and the next phase of growth.

The industry will take a long time to recover but “the worst part is probably over,” Zhao said.

Jack Schickler and Sandali Handagama contributed reporting.

Disclosure

Please note that our privacy policy, terms of use, cookies, and do not sell my personal information has been updated.

CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. In November 2023, CoinDesk was acquired by the Bullish group, owner of Bullish, a regulated, digital assets exchange. The Bullish group is majority-owned by Block.one; both companies have interests in a variety of blockchain and digital asset businesses and significant holdings of digital assets, including bitcoin. CoinDesk operates as an independent subsidiary with an editorial committee to protect journalistic independence. CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive options in the Bullish group as part of their compensation.

Camomile Shumba

Camomile Shumba is a CoinDesk regulatory reporter based in the UK. She previously worked as an intern for Business Insider and Bloomberg News. She does not currently hold value in any digital currencies or projects.


Learn more about Consensus 2024, CoinDesk's longest-running and most influential event that brings together all sides of crypto, blockchain and Web3. Head to consensus.coindesk.com to register and buy your pass now.